OSW and Real Racing Comparison

OpenSimWheel has been a true step forward regarding to immersion but many of us without real racing experience guessed from the beginning high end top configurations running 20 nm peaks would be unrealistic.

I used my instinct, karting and MTB experience to find values that could match what I expect to feel from a non assisted race car wheel while being able to opposite lock fast and with confidence. Remember what the great advantage of Direct Drive wheel is, fast input-output and precise response and definition while strength and stiffness are advantages to help with main features. Here we have more comments about the current state of the OSW from a real race car driver.

“I know this is a commonly discussed topic, but I have some comments add questions.

I drive a real world race car and here are some of my observations:

• OSW response time is very real with virtually no lag.
• However, track surface is not being communicated well enough, e.g. rumble strips are felt a lot more on the wheel everywhere in real life. OSW communicates but not enough. It is lot harder on the car and the wheel when u ride the rumble strips through the Esses at VIR for instances.
• Slides: not enough feed back as what the tires are doing.
• Steering is not this heavy in even factory built race cars when u get moving. So when u turn Torque up on the motor to get more communication, steering becomes incrementally heavy. Shouldn’t be. Steering becomes heavier in real race cars on loading the front or leaning in to turns not otherwise.
• Cant tell tires coming up to temperature… on slicks you usually feel them rolling less when warmed up.

Obviously, all these can be adjusted with software because clearly OSW hardware can do it. It is amazing piece of work

Any input on tuning the steering is appreciated. I have a system sourced from Joe Sullivan: Small Mige (doesn’t feel that small) and IOni and all that and whatever Joe said good!!!
Thanks guys”

Podium Wheel Base DD1

Among many responses referring to damper effects configuration, David Tucker replied:

“Two things you can play with.

– Our setups are not tuned by people with crazy strong wheels, it could be you need to add in more/less caster or tweak things in some other way to maximize the feel and minimize mechanical steering. I confess I have only lightly fiddled with this and don’t have any pointers on how to make a car feel more real.

– We only model rotational forces on your wheel, while in real life the wheel telegraphs vibrations from the car chassis to your hands as well. You need a tool like simvibe to bring those vibrations back into play. In particular almost all the forces you feel from rumble strips are vibratory and not rotational so that is why they feel weak without a shaker or motion platform.”

Caster is the key element to minimize steering strength effect while preserving rest of the benefits of your current setup. Try to play with it to understand how you like it.

More input from our driver:

1. “To answer some of the questions:
    apples to apples:
   – I have drives Skippy at Road Atlanta with SBRS and on simulator: somehow open wheel car feels closer to home on the simulator than Gt cars. But my comments on the steering feel still apply.
2. I drive factory built Porsche 996 Gt3 Cup car: I have driven that and Ruf Track back to back at Road Atlanta. It so happened that somebody was demoeing a motion rig right next our pit stall. So I would come off track and drive the sim. Motion rig was turned up way too high and the feeling was unnatural. Real race cars don’t move as much that sim rigs did. I think it is a tuning problem with the rig.
3. I have also driven lots of other Porsche track cars, a Corvette, and BMW race cars.
4. About playing around with setting: I don’t know what each setting does in terms of effect on the steering. So I am a bit lost. But Castor adjustment is a good point.
5. One clarification about the Ruf: it is a modified street car: compared to a factory built Porsche gt3 cup car, even on the simulator, it feels like a street car. There is lot of wheel spin
6. My comments about the steering feel still applies. I think David Tucker’s point about vibratory forces is true. Still when I hit the right hand rumb strip at he beginning of Esses at VIR in my race car, you can feel more than vibratory feeling in the steering.”

Fanatec Podium Racing Wheel Formula for Xbox One & PC

Remember what caster angle was:

“Improper adjustment will result in steering inputs required both into and out of a corners, resulting in a car which is difficult to keep on a straight line.  Too much caster (positive caster) and the front of the car will understeer more, too little (negative caster) and you will get oversteer handling characteristics.”

More MMOS and Granity settings to come.